I think the game is going to stay free...

[Seraphita]

If anyone pays money to play this game as is beyond the $10 off the shelf you gotta be smoking some bad granola.
They need a near full game redesign before i pay SE a dime.
This game had so much potential to be great and they just screwed it hard, i dont know how they did so poorly even after 5years of making the game and continually pushing back release and still releasing it too early lol
SE really let me down on this project, and it really shakes my confidence in them.

[Elexia]

If anyone pays money to play this game as is beyond the $10 off the shelf you gotta be smoking some bad granola.
They need a near full game redesign before i pay SE a dime.
This game had so much potential to be great and they just screwed it hard, i dont know how they did so poorly even after 5years of making the game and continually pushing back release and still releasing it too early lol
SE really let me down on this project, and it really shakes my confidence in them.

To clear misinformation:

1. FFXIV was in production 2 - 3ish years, not the full 5 years. It was merely announced 5 years ago and the tech demo was just a video demonstration of the 360 graphical capabilities.
2. They didn't want the game to resemble XI too much, this includes the basic and we're here where we are today.
3. The release date was never pushed back. Not once. It has always been TBA 2010, then the higher ups (Wada) wanted the game out at a crucial financial point as they had no major titles for 2010/early 2011 to show on reports.
4. People paid for a featureless and literally "make your own fun" alpha/beta game called Minecraft, so clearly it's not a new concept to pay for a beta.

[Eekiki]

If there was no profit or sustainability in F2P games, how come Perfect World and NCSoft are rolling in dough?

SE could easily make use of the crysta shop to generate revenue for FFXIV, and someday they will. They just haven't done it yet.

[Verecund]

To clear misinformation:

1. FFXIV was in production 2 - 3ish years, not the full 5 years. It was merely announced 5 years ago and the tech demo was just a video demonstration of the 360 graphical capabilities.
2. They didn't want the game to resemble XI too much, this includes the basic and we're here where we are today.
3. The release date was never pushed back. Not once. It has always been TBA 2010, then the higher ups (Wada) wanted the game out at a crucial financial point as they had no major titles for 2010/early 2011 to show on reports.
4. People paid for a featureless and literally "make your own fun" alpha/beta game called Minecraft, so clearly it's not a new concept to pay for a beta.

Wow.

(1) Why is this the customer's fault again?
(2) Do you know what "competition" is? And did you know that businesses must successfully participate in this practice in order to survive?

If a game is officially released, it can no longer be "in beta". It is, for the most part, public ready. SE has not even given us that much... in fact they pretty much had to re-engineer most of the core of the game upon release (and have yet to release the magic patch that will do so)

[Wolfie]

2. They didn't want the game to resemble XI too much, this includes the basic and we're here where we are today.

Excuse me, what?

You've got the same races, same single-faction world, same nomenclature and terminology, same control scheme, almost the same menu interface, same deal with the out-of-game config, etc. I won't get into content like monsters, spells, and skills, because those are more of a Final Fantasy thing.

But dude, this game quite literally tried to be FFXI-2.

[irongripz]

I really do, now that age of conan online has become free to play very soon.. I think the game should stay free, untill there's way to many people that are playing it....

it wont stay free. 2.0 should be time they start subs. ps3 sales and relaunch hype, should bring in allot of players. maybe.. but even so f2p games are not free lol to enjoy allot of the features you have to buy crap off cash shop.

[Vawn]

Yeah I'm sure the OP has been sitting around for 4 months to get your opinion on this matter.

[HiirNoivl]

I think..

Really? /ten

[ChiefCurrahee]

Thing is AoC was actually set to be a major player on the MMO stage however it had a failure of a launch, much like 14, so you could look at AoC and see what 14 may end up being like. MMOs with poor launches rarely recover to a good point.

Most MMOs don't have a second chance at a launch with a console version, which means completely different player base and whole new marketing campaign.

[Alerith]

Most MMOs don't have a second chance at a launch with a console version, which means completely different player base and whole new marketing campaign.

This.

This isn't just some game SE is going to let die down to a FTP crap game. They are putting in the effort to correct it. Will those efforts pay off? We won't know for real until 2.0.

The thing is that people are severely underestimating a good marketing campaign and E3 presentation. If done right, they could bring it up to an extremely successful level.

Either way, neither side can present their opinion as fact, since nobody knows what's going to happen come 2.0.